pinion, but still the fact that he was telling it remained--and it was
a fact which to such a man as Coxeter constituted an outrage on the
decencies of life.

Mrs. Archdale, by her foolish good-nature, had placed herself in such a
position as to be consulted in a case of conscience concerning a Jewish
tradesman and his light o' love, and now the man was debating with her
as with himself, as to whether he should marry this woman, as to whether
he should force on his respectable English mother a French
daughter-in-law of unmentionable antecedents! Coxeter gathered that the
liaison had lasted ten years--that it had begun, in fact, very soon
after the man had first come to Paris.

In addition to his feeling of wrath that Nan Archdale should become
cognisant of so sordid a tale, there was associated a feeling of shame
that he, Coxeter, had overheard what it had not been meant that he
should hear.

Perforce the story went on to its melancholy and inconclusive end, and
then, suddenly, Coxeter became possessed with a desire to see Nan
Archdale's face. He glanced across at her. To his surprise her face was
expressionless; but her left hand was no longer lying on her knee, it
was supporting her chin, and she was looking straight before her.

"I suppose," she said at last, "that you have made a proper provision
for your--your friend? I mean in case of your death. I hope you have so
arranged matters that if anything should happen to you, this poor woman
who loves you would not have to go back to the kind of life from which
you took her." Even Coxeter divined that Nan had not found it easy to
say this thing.

"Why, no, I haven't done anything of that sort. I never thought of doing
it; she's always been the delicate party. I am as strong as a horse!"

"Still--still, life's very uncertain." Mrs. Archdale was now looking
straight into the face of the stranger on whom she was thrusting
unsought advice.

"She has no claim on me, none at all----" the man spoke defensively. "I
don't think she'd expect anything of that sort. She's had a very good
time with me. After all, I haven't treated her badly."

"I'm sure you haven't," Nan spoke very gently. "I am sure you have been
always kind to her. But, if I may use the simile you used just now,
life, even to the happiest, the most sheltered, of women, isn't all
jam!"

The man looked at her with a doubting, shame-faced glance. "I expect
you're right," he said abruptly. "I ought to have